


coming home

by xbrittniex3



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Episode: s02e20 Beside Still Water, Introspective Alec, M/M, Sleepy Magnus, alec is so in love it hurts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-17 22:14:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11860704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xbrittniex3/pseuds/xbrittniex3
Summary: they've said their apologies, decided to move on, and walked hand-in-hand back to the loft. but when all is said and done, when magnus sleeps soundly and alec is still wide awake, he wonders if he even deserves this forgiveness. he wonders if he even deserves to come home.coda of sorts to 2x20





	coming home

Alec isn’t sure what time it is. He’s been standing on the balcony, looking out over New York City, listening to the city that still bustled below him for what feels like hours. He knows it’s well past two in the morning, because that was what the clock had read as he slipped outside. But he’s been out here for a while now, long enough for a chill to set deep inside his bones and have him shivering, but he doesn’t dare go inside. 

It’s been only a few hours since he and Magnus had talked, since they’d rekindled and left the Hunter’s Moon, headed for the loft. It’d taken all of a few sleepy kisses and the promise that Alec would still be there in the morning for Magnus to drift off, but as hard as he tried, as tightly as he held Magnus against him, he couldn’t get his mind to turn off long enough for him to sleep as well. 

He doesn’t deserve this, he thinks. He doesn’t deserve to hold Magnus this close, to nuzzle his face into his hair, to breathe in the scent that is so familiar and so incredibly _Magnus_. That was why he’d pulled away, why he’d stepped outside at 2 AM, why he was refusing to go back in. Apologies weren’t enough. No matter how many times Magnus had told him that it was in the past, that they could move forward, Alec was utterly ashamed that he hadn’t been truthful in the first place. And after all Magnus had been through in his some four hundred years, the least that he deserved was complete honesty - and Alec hadn’t been able to provide even that for him. He doesn’t understand why Magnus would allow him to come home after how he’d behaved toward him.

Home - the word takes him by surprise as if it’s the first time he’s ever thought it before. He wonders when he started thinking of the loft as home. Never consciously, no, but he knew that at the end of each day, this was the place that he always wanted to return to. Not the Institute, not his parents, not even his siblings. This place. But even more so than that… Magnus. Home, he figures, is… the way Magnus laughs, really laughs, the way that has his whole body shaking. It’s those few moments in the early hours of the morning when all is still, and he gets to watch the rise and fall of his still-sleeping boyfriend’s chest.

It’s just Magnus. All that he is, all that he was, and all that he ever will be.

“Alexander?”

Alec starts, having been so lost in his thoughts that he hadn’t even heard the door to the balcony open. He turns to find Magnus leaning in the doorway, an unbuttoned shirt hanging loosely on his body, his hair a mess, his eyes unglamoured and still partially closed in a way that said he was still half asleep. He’s beautiful, Alec knows this, he’s always beautiful. But there’s always been something about those few moments that he gets to see Magnus bare-faced and sleepy, with his walls down and his heart wide open, that makes him fall in love all over again.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Alec says quietly. He realizes he’s still staring, and his heart is pounding in his chest so loud he’s sure Magnus can hear it all the way over there. 

He wonders how he got this lucky. Because he didn’t deserve any of this, not even a little bit, not after what he’d done. But Magnus is looking at him with soft eyes, and he’s taking steps forward, and he’s holding Alec’s hand, and Alec realizes that this is what he wants for the rest of his life. Magnus, every facet of him, every single layer. He’s never known that love could feel like this, so freeing, so… beautiful.

“Are you alright?”

Alec meets Magnus’s eyes and his heart is soaring. He wonders how this man calmed the storm in his mind with merely a look and his whispered name, each syllable sounding like a hallelujah. Each syllable sounding like home.

“Yes,” he tells him, and the words are relief, and they’re comfort and contentment, and love. Because as much as Alec knows he doesn’t deserve Magnus’s love, not really, he realizes then that maybe it’s not about whether he deserves it or not. Maybe it’s just about the fact that he has it, regardless of the mistakes that he’s made, and Alec swears to himself as he grips Magnus’s hand tighter that he’s never going to make a mistake like that again. He’s going to fight for their love, and he’s never going to let go again.

“Come back to bed, love.” 

Magnus is standing, never once dropping Alec’s hand, and he follows him with ease back into the apartment. The room is a relief from the cold air outside, but nowhere near as warm and wonderful as the hand clasped in his own. 

Home, he realizes, is the steady beat of Magnus’s heart, directly under where Alec lays his head. The sound that tells him that Magnus is here, that he’s alive, that he’s not going anywhere. The sound that tells him that their love isn’t some fleeting fantasy - that it’s tangible, real, and worth fighting for. He falls asleep to that sound, sweeter than any symphony, never letting go of Magnus’s hand.

**Author's Note:**

> alright guys, i literally just watched all of shadowhunters maybe like two weeks ago, so... hopefully my alec isn't too far off. anyway... thanks for reading. <3


End file.
